Various portable devices, such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDA's), portable digital and video cameras, portable music players, portable electronic games, and cellular phones or other wireless devices, require portable power sources. The weight and inconveniences of single-use batteries and rechargeable batteries have motivated efforts to replace those power sources for portable use. Thus, there is an increasing demand for light-weight, re-usable, efficient, and reliable power sources in such applications and in many other applications as well. In attempts to meet these needs, various portable fuel cells have been developed, such as ceramic-based solid-oxide fuel cells, direct methanol fuel-cell (DMFC) systems, reformed-methanol-to-hydrogen fuel-cell (RMHFC) systems, and other proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) fuel-cell systems. Some fuel-cell designs require heating of the fuel itself or heating of fuel-cell elements for best efficiency, while some fuel-cell designs require cooling. There is a continuing need and a large anticipated market for improved practical compact portable fuel cells with rapid startup times and improved efficiency.
For clarity of the description, the drawings are not drawn to a uniform scale. In particular, vertical and horizontal scales may differ from each other and may vary from one drawing to another.